ELIZABETH WALLING

b. 1981 Elizabeth Olivia Walling lives, works and studies in the south of England. She is a soprano, composer, artist and poet with a primary discipline in composition. Poetry and various forms of Art such as collage, photomontage, sketching and photography all espouse her musical or aesthetic interests of a particular theme. Recent themes have been concerned with Mourning and the Mourning Veil, Abandonment and Silence.

--------

TARANTELLA IMPROMPTU

When I staged the Tarantella upon your open wound
My black heels scuffed
The skin of your throat
Spreading apart the waxen folds
like sand dune spines
In lethargic momentum

I wanted to lead you disquieted
Through the vestibule of my organs
And illustrate those feline women who catalogue
Little mnemonics of Horror
In their stilted suitcase
Virginity stowed for death
Their manner of sliding fingers into view
Over an eyelid,
The cusp of a glass
For the lust of a poetic remark
Impromptu.

On a bed of
Bitten daylight
I struck your back
With my tongue
I spat venom into my pouch purse
Watching it smelt over the copper beads
And a fibre from your head.

--------

OF MORNING

The grave horror of wakefulness.
Disrobed!
Trembling from the motion
Of extrication
Surfeited with vacuum and primordial dread
The disloyalty of sleep.

I'd sit within the trace of your fresh absence
Lulling for hours
Kneading the scraps
That smear my china bowl
The buttered crust
Yawning it's ineffable obligation.
To my pursed lips.

I'd scour my fingertips for those frayed tufts of skin
That tear off in triangular scales
As young petals would
Leaving in their wake
A silken scar.